The study has shown that the economy in Minnesota can decarbonize by 80% (from 2005 levels) by 2050. All the decarbonization pathways involve deeper energy efficiency of existing electric demands (particularly in the industrial sector), heavy electrification of transportation, transitioningheating of space and water from natural gas and resistive heating to heat pumps, building new zero-emission generation technologies, and retiring fossil-fuel generation.

The electrification of other sectors provides the electricity sector with new demands, which have different load profiles to existing demands and have greater flexibility potential. These new loads provide increasing sales for the electricity sector to invest against. Further, the greater flexibility allows the electricity grid to incorporate more variable resources, which are low-cost and nearzero emissions. Further, the electrification provides net cost savings for consumers because the reduction in spending on other energy supplies (natural gas for heating and gasoline for transportation) outweighs the additional spending in the electricity sector for the electrified loads.

You can get the PDF here.

This is complicated but for those not following, I’ll try to provide an explanation.

The Boundary Waters contains rock near the surface that miners want to mine. And, very little can be done to stop this, given that we chose over the last few years to put Republicans in charge, and they are puppets of industry, especially extractive industries like mining.

Part of the process of mining in the boundary waters, which are legally protected from mining is to remove the protections by “swapping” land that is not in the protected area for land that is in the protected area. This is known as the Polymet Land Swap because Polymet is the the company that wants to do this particular mining. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been convinced, against their constituent’s demands, that the mining will continue. So, the land swap seemed a done deal, and everything that various opponents to the project have tried has failed.

Until just a few moments ago. One effort to limit or stop the mining is to insist that the courts have a look at the relative value of the land being swapped in this deal. The usual powers had tried to get that taken off the table, and it seemed successfully, until today. Under public pressure, netotiators in Congress have worked out a deal to drop the limit on the court’s consideration of relative value. It is all here in this press release from the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 24, 2018 End congressional delays, let courts finally review PolyMet land exchange Saint Paul, Minnesota — Monday, congressional negotiators announced that a provision to end court review of the PolyMet land exchange had been dropped from the National Defense Authorization Act. Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy is one of the organizations asking for a court review of the PolyMet land exchange, and released the following statement: “Sixteen months ago, we asked a federal court to review the PolyMet land exchange to ensure it provides an equal value exchange for taxpayers and public land users,” stated Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “Attempts to derail this review through congressional action have stalled the finalization of the land exchange and delayed justice for Minnesotans. This could have been done by now – it’s time to end the delays and let the courts do their job.” In March 2017, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, The W.J. McCabe Chapter of the Izaak Walton League, and Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal court to review the land exchange, arguing that it illegally undervalued public land. There are three additional lawsuits that argue that the PolyMet land exchange violates federal laws. In March 2018, U.S. District Judge Joan Erickson dismissed PolyMet’s motions to dismiss these lawsuits, but indefinitely stayed all of them pending congressional action. On June 28th, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it had completed the transfer of over 6,600 acres to PolyMet, but this action is subject to court review and can be modified or reversed if found to be in violation of federal law.

You can download it HERE.

The report concludes that yes, Fracking is bad for you, and for others.

All together, findings to date from scientific, medical, and journalistic investigations combine to demonstrate that fracking poses significant threats to air, water, health, public safety, climate stability, seismic stability, community cohesion, and long-term economic vitality. Emerging data from a rapidly expanding body of evidence continue to reveal a plethora of recurring problemsand harms that cannot be sufficiently averted throuhj regulatory frameworks. There is no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which public health depends.

Sounds bad.

The other candidates have positions that run from “seems kinda OK” to “is maybe mostly OK” but none are good enough. The most common position on a given environmental issue is for the candidate to indicate that they think it is very important. Sadly, when it comes to climate change specifically, the most common position is for the candidate to acknowledge that climate change is real.

Sorry, but you don’t get points for knowing how to write your name on the top of the exam.

We all know the environment is important, and we all know climate change is real. I should mention that I’m talking here entirely about candidates in the Democratic Party. I suppose, sadly, a Republican candidate can get points for acknowledging that climate change is real. But, that is roughly like giving an adult kudos for wiping the mud off their boots before walking in your house. We are not impressed.

No, it isn’t good enough to say that the environment is important, or to claim that you agree with widespread and well established scientific consensus.

I have some preferences in some races for who I’d like to see run in the upcoming elections, from my party. I’m undecided about others. (I’ve only openly endorsed one candidate.) I’m actually trying to remain undecided in several of the races for as long as possible because I find myself often enough working in groups of people where our working together is more important than our possible differences on candidates. That will all end eventually and we will all get behind the Democrats we endorse or select in primaries, and work very hard to get them elected.

In the meantime, I have a few thoughts for candidates and their policy advisers on environmental issues, with something of a focus on climate change. I do work as a policy adviser for candidates. If you are a candidate and want to hire me, do let me know, I’m available. But for now, here is some free advice. This advice does not speak to specific policy. Rather, it speaks to how to focus your efforts on developing good policy. In addition, this advice will help you avoid saying things that will make you look inadequate to those who understand the issues already. And, this is not comprehensive. This is, rather, the rant in my head when I woke up this morning, written down and edited somewhat to be work safe.

It isn’t enough to say that you believe climate change is real, or that you feel it is very important, even existential in nature. It isn’t enough to say that you support doing a lot of research on the problem, or that you are really worried about it.

First, you have to demonstrate that you know why it is important. Climate change affects patterns of weather, which in turn affect everything from agriculture to lifestyle to disease, globally in ways that will negatively influence everyone’s food supply. It directly and indirectly causes upheaval, economic collapse, and social instability, leading to violent uprisings and an ever more severe refugee crisis across the world. It causes local change in any given candidate’s area that range from how global effects damage the interests of local or regional businesses (for example, global agricultural businesses are very concerned about ongoing and future effects of climate change) to more mundane and personal (for example, in Minnesota, the loss of backyard hockey ice and good ice for ice fishing, the collapse of our summer-time clean lake ecology, and much more severe effects such as the unchecked spread of Lyme disease and other health effects).

Think of it this way. Big storms like the hurricanes that hit the US last year are very important and increasing storm frequency and severity are without a doubt real problems that arise from climate change (though the details are not entirely certain). But if you think that is the most significant effect, you are probably wrong. You will find yourself tracking and worrying about storms while the global agricultural system collapses first in areas that become inundated by sea level rise and, overlapping but a bit later in time, in areas that simply become too hot to grow certain key crops in, and eventually, as vast tropical and subtropical regions become uninhabitable by our species because the average high temperature is simply above human body temperature for too many hours a day, too many days a year, and prior regional economic and social collapse (brought on by a collapsing agricultural system) obviate such niceties as air conditioners. That sort of thing. I’ve left out a lot of details and there are potential variations on this scenario.

In the west, we worry today about who gets the contract to bring bottled water to Puerto Rico or Houston after a hurricane, and yes, that is important. But do not forget that in Pakistan, there are people who have the job of contracting laborers to dig hundreds of graves in advance each warm season, for the bodies that will pile up when the annual heat wave arrives.

In the US, every region has some sort of major environment-affecting project ongoing or looming on the horizon. Development in coastal region. Moving water supplies from better watered to more arid regions. Mining. Suburban or exurban development. Pipelines. Many of these projects are associated with an environmental review, which involves having numerous experts examine, measure, and describe a project’s effects on the environment and local economy, and other factors. We often hear candidates say, “Oh, there is a process, and it involves science! We just need to do whatever the process, which involves science, tells us to do in the end, because we believe in science!” Actually, that is not a bad answer. But it is an inadequate answer because there is another level to consider.

The environmental review process involves something else, in addition to science. It involves appeasement. Technically, it is called “mitigation” but it can also involve appeasement. I’ll give you a hypothetical example.

The water supply of a small town, which uses a lot of private wells, is threatened by a project. So, to mitigate the projects effects, some sort of deal is made where local ground water quality is monitored, and when something goes wrong, an appropriate response will be made. The job of monitoring ground water is handed to the appropriate state agency, and the details of the potential response are not worked out, because that is better left for when there is an actual problem.

The Republicans then take over the state, drop funding for the agency because that is what they do, and the monitoring of seemingly clean groundwater is cynically ended. Later, people somehow discover that the groundwater has become contaminated by the project previously “mitigated” so it is now understood that an appropriate response should be made. But, there is no appropriate response on the table because that detail wasn’t really worked out at the time, there is no funding for it because that was not included in the original mitigation plan, and it turns out, the damage to the groundwater is much worse than expected both qualitatively (there is lead, when lead was not expected, perhaps) and quantitatively (a much larger area is affected, at a higher rate than expected).

Stakeholders were appeased at the time of the mitigation plan’s implementation. But, the effects of the project were actually not mitigated against.

A good environmental policy demands not just that the environmental review process be followed strictly and cleanly, honestly and fully, but also, that assurances be in place, in the event that this process is ultimately circumvented by design, chance, or error. Making such assurances part of the process will provide incentive to large corporations that might otherwise merely appease, encouraging them to actually engage honestly and effectively in long term protection, and when they don’t, a good assurance arrangement will forcibly extract what is needed from their corporate hides.

A good political position on the environment demonstrates that a candidate understands the issues, knows what research has already been done and where weak areas in our understanding need to be filled in. A good clue that a candidate really doesn’t have a good environmental position is when they call for funding for intensive research in an area where there has already been a lot of research, and we know a lot.

Another clue to a candidate’s understanding or lack thereof is where the candidate claims the onus of action resides. Is a particular issue mainly federal, state, or local? What are the appropriate regulatory agencies, or major stakeholders, in the overall legal and legislative web? An informed and thoughtful candidate can name the governmental agencies that are involved in a particular aspect of the environment (for example, this might be very different for mining vs. agriculture), and will avoid suggesting that a particular problem be handled by an agency that really has no stake, business, or experience in it.

Candidates will and do differ in the degree to which they expect the free market to fix environmental problems, but there really is only one good position on this policy aspect of environmentalism. Historically, free markets, by their very nature, will always damage the environment, and privilege economic gain. Every now and then free market forces will push forward a technology that is good for the environment, but that technology is not being advanced for the reason that it is friendly to the Earth. It is being advanced because it is friendly, at the moment, to business people and stockholders. If we rely on that, the moment it makes more sense, financially, to throw the environment under the bus to benefit business people and stockholders, that will happen, because that is what the free market is supposed to do.

For this reason, good policy does not look to the free market for solutions. Rather, it looks to harness free market forces to do the bidding of good environmental strategy, wherever that works. A good position does not involve pointing to one or the other good thing happening in the free market (like wind power becoming cheap), saying “there, it is being fixed.” A good position acknowledges the positive effects of the free market, and the negative effects of the free market, and strives to combine thoughtful protection of the environment, people, and natural resources with incentives to nudge business and industry along in the right direction.

Finally, a good position is current. Time and time again I hear politicians say things that are simply out of date. Somewhat more often, I see people ask questions of politicians that are based on out of date information, and the politician seems to not know that, and therefore can’t respond correctly. This is especially true in the area of the energy transition, where the efficacy of various clean energy sources is currently changing dramatically, and the rate at which that change happens changes dramatically (in more than one direction!).

That is all, now please do one of these two things. 1) Be a better politician or b) go find a politician and hold their feet to the fire. Figuratively.

Trump’s executive order puts the world on the road to climate catastrophe

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order that effectively guts national efforts to address climate change. If he isn’t stopped, the endpoint of this approach is the ruination of our livable climate and the needless suffering of billions of people for decades to come.
The order starts the process of undoing President Obama’s Clean Power Plan standards for power plants. It also spurs fossil fuel consumption and blocks federal efforts to even prepare for the multiple, simultaneous catastrophes that unrestricted carbon pollution the world faces?—?severe drought, ocean acidification, ever-worsening heat waves, rising seas that threaten to destroy coastal cites.
This is not politics as usual. …

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Trump’s Executive Order Threatens to Wreck Earth as a Livable Planet for Humans

Decades of progress on cleaning up our dirty air took a significant hit on Tuesday, along with hopes for a livable future climate, when President Trump issued his Energy Independence Executive Order. Most seriously, the order attacks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean Power Plan, which requires a 32 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from existing power plants by 2030 (compared to 2005 emission rates.)

Tuesday’s blow was just the latest in a series of attacks that threaten our health and the planet’s health. On March 15, Trump also ordered…

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I am an Arctic researcher. Donald Trump is deleting my citations

…At first, the distress flare of lost data came as a surge of defunct links on 21 January. The US National Strategy for the Arctic, the Implementation Plan for the Strategy, and the report on our progress all gone within a matter of minutes. As I watched more and more links turned red, I frantically combed the internet for archived versions of our country’s most important polar policies.

I had no idea then that this disappearing act had just begun.

Since January, the surge has transformed into a slow, incessant march of deleting datasets, webpages and policies about the Arctic. I now come to expect a weekly email request to replace invalid citations, hoping that someone had the foresight to download …

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Details are unclear, but the idea is to have states and local communities regulate their environmental pollution.

The EPA centralizes research programs, policy guidance, and regulatory procedures. To ask each community to do this amounts to a huge tax increase, because the same effort would have to be repeated many times across the country.

The reason we have a national EPA is because pollution does not respect boundaries. People who live in states run by anti-environmental lawmakers will not pay for pollution mitigation, and the pollution they create will flow down stream or blow down wind to states where people act responsibly about the environment. This is unacceptable.

Ask your house member how they stand on the bill. Ask them to explain their position and report how they intend to vote.

Encourage your house member to vote against the bill.

Encourage your house member to act responsibly with respect to the environment.

The House has already voted as of this writing, the Senate will be voting shortly, so there is still time to call your Senators

The Sierra Club has set up that will patch you through to your Senators: 888-454-0483.

This is from Feb 1 press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

House of Representatives Votes to Block Rules Protecting Rivers From Coal Waste

Also Votes to End Requirement That Oil Companies Report Payments to Foreign Governments

WASHINGTON— In a party line vote, the U.S. House of Representatives today voted to rescind Obama administration rules to protect streams from coal waste and requiring mining and oil companies to report payments made to foreign governments. The vote was done through the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used statute allowing Congress to overturn federal rules enacted with the past 60 legislative days. It has not been successfully used since 2001.

“House Republicans just sold out America’s clean drinking water and efforts to combat international fraud in order appease Exxon and coal companies,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Polluting streams with coal waste is disgusting, dangerous and life-threatening to rural people. There will be hell to pay if Senate Republicans go along with repealing these common-sense rules that save lives and prevent corruption.”

The Stream Protection Rule was instituted by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to provide greater protections to streams from toxic coal mining waste. It would reduce pollution in 6,100 miles of streams while reducing coal mining output by less than 1 percent.

The requirement that U.S. mining, oil and natural gas companies report payments made to foreign nations was established by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the authority of the Dodd-Frank Act in order to reduce international fraud. Set to go into effect in 2018, the rule was aggressively, but until now, unsuccessfully attacked by Exxon under the leadership of Rex Tillerson.

And here is another press release from a coalition of organizations who have been fighting over this issue for some time:

CONGRESS IS ATTACKING CLEAN WATER SAFEGUARDS IN ORDER TO PROTECT THE COAL INDUSTRY
Wednesday, February 1, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House of Representatives will use an obscure tool, the Congressional Review Act (CRA), to dismantle the Stream Protection Rule (SPR), which protects clean water for communities living near mining sites. The Senate is expected to vote on the House bill tomorrow.

SPR gives communities in coal country much needed information about toxic water pollution caused by nearby mining operations. It was finalized by the Obama administration in late 2016. The modest and long overdue rule also provides these communities basic protections from the devastating impacts of mountaintop-removal coal mining on water and public health.

This safeguard helps to ensure that coal companies don’t profit off of the destruction of drinking water supplies. Unfortunately, leaders in Congress have targeted the SPR in a blatant attempt to put industry profits before public health. Repealing this commonsense protection through the CRA is a heavy handed tactic that will put many communities at risk now — and could constrain future administrations from acting to protect public health and drinking water in these communities.

A broad coalition of public health, environmental, and conservation groups opposing the CRA, released the following statements:

“Nobody voted against clean air and water in the last election. Regulatory safeguards that keep our air and water safe from toxic pollution are crafted using a democratic process and based on the best available science”, said Trip Van Noppen, President of Earthjustice. “Any attempts to dismantle them using the Congressional Review Act should be opposed. These attacks have the power to fundamentally undermine the very goals of our environmental laws by trying to cripple future attempts to enforce protections for our air, water, and lands.”??

“This is an unconscionable attack on basic clean water safeguards for communities already devastated by toxic pollution from coal mining,” said Bob Wendelgass, President and CEO of Clean Water Action. “Everyone has the right to know what is in their water and every community deserves access to clean water. Congress should reject any action that puts industry profits before protections for drinking water and public health.”

“This attempt to scrap the Stream Protection Rule is a clear case of putting polluters’ profits ahead of the basic well-being of vulnerable communities, and we must do everything we can to stop it,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “No matter who you are or where you live, you have a right to clean water — but this shameless attack puts families and communities at risk.”

“The Stream Protection Rule protects both clean drinking water for people and habitat for endangered species and other wildlife,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, President and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “We can’t have a bountiful natural heritage without securing clean water. Legislators who attack this rule through the Congressional Review Act are voting in the interest of big polluters, not local communities or future generations.”

“The potential devastation if the Stream Protection Rule is struck down is unimaginable,” said Aimee Erickson, Executive Director of Citizens Coal Council. “In the 25 states with active coal mining, nearly 100% of the drinking water comes from surface and groundwater that feeds into both public and private water supplies. These water supplies serve 11.4 million people in some of the poorest areas of the nation, where poverty levels in some areas reach nearly 43 percent.”

“Republican leadership has wasted no time in rewarding Big Polluters by attempting to roll back the historic environmental progress made under President Obama. Undoing this critical Stream Protection Rule that helps prevent coal mining companies from dumping toxic waste into drinking water would be outrageous on its own, but this extreme attack goes even further by blocking the Department of Interior from ever issuing rules that allow communities living near mining operations to know what’s being put in their water or to hold these polluters accountable for the increased rates of cancer, birth defects, and other health problems that have been linked to their waste”, said Gene Karpinski,

President of the League of Conservation Voters. “With communities across the country increasingly alarmed by contaminants like lead, flame-retardant chemicals, and many other pollutants showing up in their drinking water, shredding safeguards for clean water is the exact opposite of what Congress should do. We call on Congress to do what’s right by standing up to Big Polluters and rejecting this radical attack on clean water.”

“The politicians in Washington, D.C. are out of touch with Alaskans. Across our great state, Alaskans want healthy wild salmon streams,” said Bob Shavelson, Advocacy Director of Cook Inletkeeper. “But the political elites don’t get it—they take money from the coal corporations and ignore the will of the people.”

“Think about it: spiking a rule that tells coal companies they can’t poison our water sources, harm our landscapes or kill fish and wildlife with their waste,” said Scott Slesinger, Legislative Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is a polluter-motivated attack on the American people.”

“Appalachia has already lost 2,000 miles of streams to mountaintop removal mining. It’s crucial we protect what is left”, said John Suttles, Director of Litigation and Regional Programs for SELC. “Congress is placing coal-mining profits above the health of the people in Appalachia and the basic right to clean water.”

“National parks and people stand to lose if Congress succeeds in dismantling the Stream Protection Rule,” said Theresa Pierno, President and CEO of National Parks Conservation Association. “The rule safeguards waterways from toxic pollution produced by mining operations. Millions of Americans visit national parks in the Southeast each year, for activities such as bass fishing at Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area or white water rafting at New River Gorge National River each year. Will they continue to visit and spend millions of dollars in surrounding communities, if polluted waterways greet them upon arrival?”

“Mountaintop removal has devastated Appalachia’s land and water, and it continues to threaten the health and wellbeing of residents throughout the region,” said Tom Cormons, Executive Director of Appalachian Voices. “Appalachian communities are actively working toward a stronger economic future, not dominated by a failing coal industry. We are counting on Congress to do what is right for the people of Central Appalachia by preserving the Stream Protection Rule.”

These projects had previously been stopped because they did not meet environmental standards, or because they violated tribal agreements. It is still quite possible that these reasons still matter, and that President Trump cant’ simply wish the projects back into existence. Or maybe he can. It remains to be determined.

Here is the statement:

Washington, D.C. – Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva and key members of the Committee released the following statement today on the announcement that President Donald Trump will advance the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines through executive order. Grijalva – who published a Feb. 27, 2014, New York Times op-ed opposing the Keystone pipeline and who met with leaders at the Standing Rock Sioux camp opposed to Dakota Access early last year – has been a leading advocate for due process and environmental justice in pipeline construction. He held a Capitol Hill forum with Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) on Sept. 22, 2016, to highlight the damage often done to Native American sovereignty, health and environmental quality when pipelines are rubber-stamped.

“Even for a president who mistakes his own whims for the rule of law and corporate profits for the public interest, these orders are irresponsible,” said Grijalva. “These pipelines are being approved because President Trump wants to make polluter corporations happy, not because they’re good for the country. If either of these pipelines is finalized, the damage to water quality, public health, and eventually our climate will be on his hands. Approving the Dakota Access project in particular violates Native American sovereignty, treaty rights and federal trust responsibility which the Obama administration rightly recognized when it decided the pipeline needed further review.”

“Advancing the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines ignores years of environmental studies and opposition from local residents and landowners,” said Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.). “Instead of investing in polluting fossil fuels, we should be supporting clean, renewable energy projects that will create jobs and help our nation reduce carbon emissions.”

“Today’s actions are short-sighted with so many questions still remaining as to the risks these pipelines pose to water quality, public health, and the environment,” said Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.). “As the new Ranking Member of the Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Subcommittee, I am especially concerned with the threat the Dakota Access Pipeline poses to Native American sovereignty given the lack of input from tribal leaders whose lands stand to be severely impacted. President Trump should have allowed the thorough review process initiated by the Obama administration to be completed before rushing through this decision.”

“Just days after being sworn in, Mr. Trump has already shown he is ignoring scientists and the community in an effort to serve the big oil industry,” said Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.). This is a complete disregard for the environment and for Native American rights to water, their land, but above all, to be treated with dignity and respect.”

One order directs all federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to expedite approval of the easement to complete construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Moving forward Ranking Member Grijalva will continue to maintain strong oversight of the Dakota Access Pipeline to ensure that any further action taken by the Trump administration protects water quality, tribal sovereignty and does not turn American energy infrastructure projects into super highways that carry oil from Canada to China.

Today, President Trump signed an executive order that brings these projects back to life and moves them forward.

From Rhea Suh, president of the National Resources Defense Council:

“It’s appalling that Trump wants to throw open our borders to big polluters. Eliminating the national interest determination process, used by both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades, cedes control of our borders to multinational corporations to jam through cross-border infrastructure projects. And it completely shuts out public engagement in decisions that affect our communities, air, water and climate.

“These unprecedented actions could also pave the way for approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline—a project vehemently opposed by the U.S. tribes whose land its crosses and waters it could pollute. Equally troubling, they also revive the Keystone XL pipeline— a tar sands project that would lock our country into, for a generation or more, massive development of among the dirtiest fuels of our past. They pose a grave threat to our water, communities and climate. We will use every tool available to help ensure that they are not built.”

From Climate Hawks Vote:

Climate hawks fought one White House over the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and we won. We’re going to fight the next one. And we’re going to keep on fighting until we clear the American skies of the fossil-fueled stormfront of Trumpism – and we will, ultimately, prevail.

In the wake of Trump’s election, thousands of our members pledged resistance, including peaceful civil disobedience if necessary. We’re now calling on all Americans — including political candidates and elected officials — to pledge to resist these climate-destroying pipelines.

From Price Of Oil:

Today, President Trump will be signing executive orders reportedly to fast-track approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines. In response, David Turnbull, Campaigns Director at Oil Change International released the following statement:

“Both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines will never be completed, no matter what President Trump and his oil-soaked cabinet try to do. Trump’s first days in office saw massive opposition, marking the beginning of four years of resistance to his dangerous policies. We stopped Keystone XL and Dakota Access before and we’ll do it again. These are fights Trump and his bullies won’t win.”

It appears that this isn’t just hippie punching by Trump, but rather, a shrewd business deal for someone. According to DeSmogBlog:

As DeSmog has reported, Donald Trump’s top presidential campaign energy aide Harold Hamm stands to profit if both pipelines go through.

Hamm, the founder and CEO of Continental Resources who sat in the VIP box at Trump’s inauguration and was a major Trump campaign donor, would see his company’s oil obtained from hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the Bakken Shale flow through both lines.

Trump has suggested that these projects would produce tens of thousands of jobs. This is only true in Alt-Universe. In Real-Universe, they will only produce a few dozen jobs long term. In fact, making the movement of a commodity more efficient, which pipeline builder argue pipelines do, reduces the number of jobs to move that commodity, by definition.